Rough Sleeping

The 2018 National Homelessness Conference, presenting the theme ‘Ending homelessness together’, delivered a wealth of evidence and information on ways to understand, reduce and alleviate homelessness. Over 800 delegates and more than 80 speakers participated across two very full days, exploring the underlying drivers of homelessness and the differing strategies on how best to overcome it.

The characteristics of older homelessness can change rapidly over time and may differ significantly from place to place. This review will focus on older homelessness in England. In England older homelessness is currently on the increase and the number of older street-homeless has doubled in the five years from 2010 to 2015.

Policies in many EU countries have sought to address the link between worklessness, reliance on state benefits and the attendant poverty that they inevitably bring. However, the focus has tended to be on the acquisition of skills and education amongst younger people.

The increasing focus on cost comparisons between services can lead to misleading conclusions about their ef fectiveness. Whilst cost compari sons can be a useful tool both for benchmarking services and as a means of advocating for services for unpopular groups, data can be difficult to collect and to interpret in a meaningful way.

Rough sleeping in Britain has a long history, and interventions have alternated between legal sanctions and humanitarian concern. This paper critically examines recent changes in homeless policies and services, with particular reference to the needs of older people who sleep rough. The characteristics and problems of the group are first described.

This Plan for Change proposes a series of initiatives to help older women to be able to live in homes that are safe, secure and affordable. It has been developed by a group of non-government agencies...